About Kosmograd Newsfeed

This is the latest version of the Kosmograd Newsfeed, which has been published since 2005 by Martin Gittins.

The main focus of the blog is architecture and the city, viewed through the lens of Soviet Constructivism, and encompassing themes such as branding and city self-image, Suprematism, disurbanism, space travel, edgelands, borders, landscapes, drosscapes, virtual realities, representations.

The Chongqing Zhengsheng Real Estate Company wants to turn the area into a £40m 'Broadway' square, including apartments and a shopping mall. But the owner of the villa says he won't move out unless the company pays his price - the equivalent of £1.3 million.

"The villa owner refuses to move, so the real-estate developer has had to dig out all around it to force him to," says a saleswoman at Weilian Real Estate Sales Company.

"He wants 20 million yuan, or he'll stay till the end of the world."

Such hardheadedness has to be applauded.

UPDATE

There's more about the house in Chongqing in China in the Guardian this weekend, with more details of the homeowner Yang Wu, and his wife Wu Ping. According the Guardian story they have been offered 3.5m yuan (about £233,000 - a lot of money in China) as compensation, but have refused.

The article continues:

"Hold-outs, known as "nails" in China because they stick up despite attempts to beat them down, are becoming increasingly common in China.

Mr Yang's protest has been strengthened by its timing. Earlier this month, the National People's Congress, China's parliament, passed the country's first law to protect private property. Earlier this week, the government reported a surge in illegal land seizures by developers and local governments."

Meanwhile, BoingBoing offers a cavalcade of homeowner holdouts, often with Google Earth evidence, and the history of Spite Mounds in Seattle Washington, further documented here.

Holdouts, we salute you. (I've moved the stuff about the house in the midde of the M62 to a new post).